As you all know, my birthday was on Thursday. I spent my birthday working at our other location, sicker than a dog. It was my goal to take my lunch break and go to a walk in clinic to get looked at. Did that happen? Yes, but not when I wanted it to.
I had to spend my morning trying to contact my insurance provider because I haven't been home to pick up my ID cards. I called my mom and pretty much immediately started crying because A) I am really sick and B) I am extremely home sick right now. Eventually I got all of that taken care of, and was finally able to just got home at 3. I never got over to our main location, which is where my birthday cake was that I had baked on Tuesday.
So I go to the Walgreens Walk In Clinic and get looked at, basically it was a sinus infection that was beginning to spread to my ears, so the nurse practitioner prescribed me some antibiotics.Then I went to Target to pick them up (because they were ironically cheaper than Walgreens). By this point, I was so sick, miserable and upset that I just went home, ate some store bought cake, and went to bed. Seriously not a great birthday.
Friday was a crazy busy day with two funeral services and an evening visitation. In the afternoon I was going downtown to pick up some death certificates and right as I was on my way to city hall I got into a car accident. Cue major freak out. I just wreaked the company car. My career, my life, my everything is now officially over. This is how it ends. I just turned 24, and I can't fucking drive a car.
It was totally my fault too, I was in an unfamiliar intersection with the way the sun was hitting the stoplights I couldn't see that my light had just turned red...boom, impact. Good news is that no one was hurt. My wrist where I was holding onto the steering wheel is a bit sore but nothing is broken. I immediately called work and talked to Jack, who sent Jim down. After doing that I called 911. Did you know that Milwaukee is apparently so freaking busy that its 911 service has a call waiting service? Basically it's like, "Please hold until the next operator can get to you". That is a bit scary when it comes to life threatening situations.
So I eventually got through and the operator told me to exchange information with the other driver and that she would try to dispatch an officer, but if one didn't show we were to go to our local district and file the report. Guess who didn't have her drivers license on her because she was running which is normally a 30 minute errand! I had to call Jim to make sure that he grabbed my wallet.
Thankfully the other driver, who was driving a company construction van, wasn't horribly upset with me. Out of everyone, including my bosses, I was the most upset. So the officer finally arrives and takes our insurance information, Jim gets there and we get everything sorted out with enough time for us to run to City Hall so I can finish picking up death certificates.
The whole car ride back I am sitting there, trying to keep my shit together, just waiting for him to ream me out. What does he do? He hands me his phone and asks me to look up the Milwaukee Bucks Ticket office so she can exchange his tickets for Saturday's game! ...Seriously...is this how normal people react in these kinds of situations?
We get back and David asks if I'm okay, I nod my head trying to keep it together and he asks me if I want a bottle of water. I again nod my head and he grabs me one and tells me to go sit down for a while. I end up going into the bathroom and just sobbing over everything. Over my horrible birthday, over the fact that I just wreaked this car...over the fact that David was so kind to me. It was just a horrible, rotten, no good, very bad day.
But wait, it gets better. Then Dani asks if Caleb is still taking over for me that night, because we had switched from last week. I said yes, if that was still okay, and Caleb said he "forgot". Well isn't that just fucking convenient! I showed Dani and Caleb both the text that Caleb had sent me asking to take over on the 23rd for him to take over for me on the 30th. That fucker. Never switching with him, ever again!
So I'm waiting in the back because Michelle wants to come with me to get her nails done, because even though I just had the two worst days of my life I still had to get my nails did...mmhmm....gurrrrllll! Right before I was about to leave, Jim calls for me, and asks me to go down to where we left the car, because hey, it had to get towed but the tow guy couldn't get down there for a few hours, and drop off the key and a check. So I run downtown, while Michelle heads off to where we usually go to get our nails done.
I get to where the tow guy is and and hand him the check. It's written for $96.10, and apparently it was suppose to be $96.96...I ask if he wants me to throw him a couple of quarters because I have this check written for this amount and I'm not going all the way back to fucking Bay View. He finally takes it and I bust my shit getting over to Southridge so I can meet up with Michelle.
We finally get our nails done and decide to go to dinner at one of the restraunts inside the mall. A really nice Italian place, and we end up shooting the shit and chatting. Michelle grabs the tab as a birthday gift to me, and I am just so thankful to have someone to talk to, and to just be able to decompress after such a stressful week.
So that was Thursday and Friday...
And here is Saturday. (I'm sorry this blog is so long, but bare with me!)
Today Kevin and I came in at 8:30 to get going on the funeral from last nights evening visitation. This woman had so many floral pieces that we had to take both vans to church! The procession alone, was over 30 cars, and there were almost 100 people going to lunch...I can't remember the last time I worked such a huge service. Probably back in October when Jim and Jack's mother passed away.
The service goes pretty well, the procession not so much. One guy was apparently on the struggle bus trying to get his car to start, and we had about 5 other cars who wanted to get in on the procession. I was so happy when we were finally done with that and back at our main location.
Shortly after 2 we all went home and I was actually doing some homework when my phone went off saying I got a text. There was a thought in the back of my mind, about how Jack would never text me about a first call...but I was wrong. I checked my phone and he sure as shit texted me to call Kevin, have us both come in, because he was still on the phone.
So Kevin and I get there, and apparently there was someone who was waiting to drop off clothes for their deceased family member, Kevin took care of that. When he called Jack back and got the information, he told me that the deceased was at a motel, and that it was urgent that we get him into our care.
A motel...we were going to do a removal from a motel...WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!!! We finally arrive to the motel, which is on this long stretch of highway and it's just littered with fast food joins and other skeezy looking motels. There is an officer there along with quite a few family members. I take a look at the body and see that it's an older gentleman of normal height and weight who was still in his clothes.
We finally begin to move him, and I felt how cold his skin was, this guy had been dead for days. There was some pretty extensive staining and blackening of the fingertips. I told Kevin to be careful with his head because he died with his mouth wide open, so purge was a very real possiblity...did he listen. hell no! So I had to steal a towel from the motel and wrap it around his head.
Ironic little side note: Sean and Caleb had a house call late Tuesday night where they were informed that the deceased was face down on the ground purging. So Caleb grabbed some forceps, the angled ones we use for draining blood, and ended up fucking losing them!...I would also like to mention that this person was close to 300lbs, on the third floor of an old house, and had been dead for days...why the fuck he wasn't taken in by the M.E. and autopsied is beyond me.
Anywho, so we get back to The Home and Kevin and I are doing inventory on the guy. All of a sudden I see him throw the towel on the ground and start stomping on it. I ask him what the hell is up, and he said that there is some insect activity going on...That means this guy is already in some advance stages of decomp to the point where flies are beginning to harvest on his fleshy bits!...Please tell me again why the M.E. didn't take this case?
Seriously, the M.E. has been disappointing me this week with the lack of 'concern' I feel they should have in some of the bodies that we have transferred into our care. So Dani texts me saying that she is coming in because our next call is an embalming. Jack had called the hospital to see if the body had been released and it was still laying in bed up on some floor...this person had died right before 3, and it was now 5.
So Kevin, Dani and I, along with Dani's kids because hello, she had to drop them off at her ex husband's, were all sitting around, picking our ass, watching the Goonies because Dani brought it so the two little twinkies would be entertained as Mommy went behinds closed doors to do some pretty hard core shit to some dead lady.
To all my friends who work in the hospital setting that have to deal with wheeling dead people down to the morgue, let me just say, I love you, what you do is amazing work, but seriously as someone who has to wait fucking hours in order to pick up a body so I can begin my job, it is super freaking annoying. And yes, I know you have to wait and do a million other things like actually keeping people alive, but still, us 'death professionals' shouldn't have to wait 4+ hours to pick a body up from the morgue.
And to top it all off, this lady also needs to be taken down to the M.E. to get viewed because apparently she had a brain bleed.
Now I have to come in tomorrow morning at 9 so I we can finish what was never really started in the first place. Oh and did I mention that Milwaukee is under a winter storm warning until Sunday at 3am? So that means I will not only have to drive, but work in a freaking blizzard.
Winter can end any day now. Seriously. Fuck off winter.
So that is my week from hell part deux: birthday edition! I apologize for how long the post was, and for the use of a lot of profanity, but as I'm sure you can all tell this was a really shitty week for me.
Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, and/or acknowledged that I had achieved a new level in my life. I really hope that the rest of my 363 days of being 24 are smoother sailing than these last two days.
Until next time.
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